On Friday, 76 students left MHS at 12:45 p.m. to explore a future career in healthcare at the annual Mercy Medical Career Exploration Day hosted by Mercy Hospital in St. Louis.

As the sponsor of MHS Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA), Lisa Del Pizzo, science teacher, accompanied 60 HOSA members on the trip. She saw it as an opportunity to push students to pursue interests in the medical field.

“The purpose was to expose students to various healthcare careers,” Del Pizzo said. “What kind of school and classes they’re going to need, what kind of salaries they can expect, what does the job market look like in the future of the particular health field they’re interested in, a lot of valuable information.”

The Mercy Medical Career Exploration Day featured 47 booths maintained by health professionals encompassing a wide variety of healthcare careers, including Emergency Room, Oncology, Sports Medicine and Pediatrics.

Friday marked the fifth year of HOSA’s involvement with the Mercy-sponsored event. The visit was ultimately a success, Del Pizzo said.

“The booths were similar this year,” Del Pizzo said. “But this year, students had the opportunity to visit more booths because it wasn’t as crowded.”

Siddharth Balaji, senior, is the co-president of HOSA and found the event to be incredibly helpful in propagating information about the field.

“I’m not sure what exactly I want to specialize in in the medical field, so I came here to gain a deeper insight and perspective,” Balaji said.

Balaji regarded the event as beneficial to other indecisive yet focused HOSA members.

“I think many HOSA students here are interested in the medical field but they’re not sure where exactly their interests lie,” Balaji said. “The Career Exploration Day shows them the different facets of the medical field and which ones applies to their interests.”

Daniel Won, junior, is a third-year HOSA member who attended the event in hopes of gathering more information about a career path he has already decided upon.

“I want to be a nurse practitioner so I can help people out and make a decent salary,” Won said. “Here, I learned more about what to do as a medical professional.”

Won considered the Emergency Room booth as a favorite, where he was able to have Mercy ER nurses apply a cast on him to demonstrate the extensive process.

“[The booth] showed you how to roll a cast up and why. I enjoyed that,” Won said. “When I become a nurse, I can help a patient roll the cast and guide them through.”